


no angels could beckon me back

by corneyes



Category: LOONA (Korea Band), loona - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Kinda?, STREAM SO WHAT DAMNIT, Two Shot, WE ALL NEED HELP, because ill be there makes me smile more than getting high grades, collegeAU, hyunjin's weird af and heejin's lowkey into it, im trying okay, maybe unrelated but do it anyway, seriously, sorta told in heejin's point of view, weirdness ain't showcased much tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22557649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corneyes/pseuds/corneyes
Summary: Sometimes, Heejin mulls over the boundaries of being friends, and being something else entirely.
Relationships: Jeon Heejin/Kim Hyunjin
Comments: 14
Kudos: 144





	1. 1/2

**Author's Note:**

> In case of confusion, there's a three-year (?) time skip in between the 2 parts.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Just get this over with,” Heejin mutters under her breath, trying not to let the soap get to her eyes as she reaches for the shower tap. “It’s not even that deep, damn it.”

"It’s not a big deal," Heejin whispers to herself.

It’s not something concerning enough to spend days on—wondering, speculating, and generally just wasting her time going over the myriad possiblities the conclusion would tilt towards. How does anyone predict it anyway? She really shouldn’t be thinking this much about it.

Telling Hyunjin a simple sentence consisting of the words _I_ and _like_ and _you_ shouldn’t be a big deal. She could even add a tiny _I think_ in the beginning of said sentence to cushion the blow in case it's too shocking for the other girl to process.

It’s not like she had any major thing to lose anyway. Hyunjin is the type of person who will simply say no if she wants to, and get over it just as easily as breathing. If Heejin, theoreticallly speaking, takes courage to confront her for a moment and tells her that she is quite honestly tired of daydreaming about her, Hyunjin’s most likely to just raise an eyebrow and tell her to find another weird hobby to disappoint her parents with.

“Just get this over with,” Heejin mutters under her breath, trying not to let the soap get to her eyes as she reaches for the shower tap. “It’s not even that deep, damn it.”

It’s just Hyunjin—pretty, weird, cat-like Hyunjin who imitates dog barks for some unexplainable reason—and they’ve been roommates for a year now, friends for much longer, and frankly, at this point, Heejin should probably already feel fed up with the way Hyunjin dozes off in the middle of their rare serious conversations, or pulls her into corners without any kind of warning just because she can, or brags about how her hand could envelop Heejin’s own so easily it’s actually vexing—

These days, though, Heejin’s only had frequent occasions of struggling to fight back sudden urges to smile.

A small sigh slips out of her mouth.

“Even that—” she whispers to herself as she tilts her head to rinse the soap off her shoulder, “—isn’t anything new.”

Repetitive and ever-present within the recesses of her mind, the images scratch into the back of her eyes relentlessly—Hyunjin’s smile, Hyunjin’s eyes, the way she grins in a particular way that she only ever does whenever it’s Heejin she’s looking at, all of it consumes her and washes over her, gently ridding her mind of everything else, the exact same way the cold water sheds her skin of sweat and dirt and acrylic paint.

Heejin doesn’t know much about love. She’s never had a boyfriend in her seventeen years of living. She hasn’t dated any guy either, and to no one’s surprise, there is also not a single girl in her lifelong history of dating (or lack thereof). It’s a farfetched idea; falling for someone. The thought of it only crosses her mind once in a while but it never stays, and for good reason. Heejin’s always been too focused on her art and as a result, doesn’t think much about anything else. She’s never felt the need to, anyway.

Recently, though, it’s been proving hard to pour her all into painting, unlike before, when she only had to put on her headphones and blast music and suddenly, she’s in her own world; with her canvas, her brush, and paint. It’s considerably harder to fixate herself on one thing when quiet, inviting laughter echoes in her ears and instead of her own, isolated universe she’s stuck in one that loops over and over again with Hyunjin as her only company—smiling, with her eyes narrowing into soft curves that never really seem to arch enough to be called crescents, and her breathy giggles that send phantasmal sensations of thorns wrapping around Heejin’s heart in a way that is ticklish, almost.

It's unhealthy to think about Hyunjin—

But somehow, she can’t bring herself to stop.

—

“This is okay,” Heejin finds herself whispering in the middle of the night. “We’re okay. I’m okay. Oh, my God, no—but like, I’m fine. I’m—” she pauses, gripping the blanket tighter, her eyes staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling. Her next words come out in a manner a tad less frantic, but with a sudden influx of hesitation. “I’m fine… right?”

It really shouldn’t be a problem, shouldn’t be taking over her senses as if it’s all she could see and hear and feel and taste—but it is. Heejin knows she’s not supposed to be agonizing over it half as much as she is, but she can’t help holding her breath when the tip of Hyunjin’s nose brushes against the crook of her neck. It doesn’t press into her skin enough to be considered a proper touch, only grazes—makes contact that’s barely even one but it’s enough for Heejin’s heartbeat to go several beats faster than what’s considered normal.

Hyunjin’s sleeping and consequently, entirely oblivious to what she’s doing: Heejin’s well aware of this. And maybe everyone thinks that Hyunjin isn’t the type to crave skin contact, but Heejin knows it’s the other way around, that Hyunjin stays away from skinship whenever she can but gets really clingy in her sleep. Hyunjin’s just like that, really. It’s just how she’s wired. Heejin knows that, but Hyunjin gets really touchy and there’s no one else to take over the role of the victim other than Heejin, and she doesn’t know what to make of that.

A few breaths later, Heejin finds herself wondering why she isn’t moving to get away from Hyunjin before she makes some sort of stupid mistake—

Air escapes from between her lips in strangled, stuttering breaths, only to seep back inside the comfort of her lungs when Hyunjin nuzzles into her neck, slightly damp lips sliding over Heejin’s skin in cold burns as she murmurs hushed whispers of nothing at all. They’re soft and smooth, kind of cool against her skin, contrasting the dizzyingly hot feeling of her every breath. Heejin only gets a second to marvel over how Hyunjin’s lips aren’t drying up despite not having been moisturized for about an hour now before she feels a hand sliding—so very lightly, like a feather wash, almost—up the exposed skin between the hem of her shirt, ridden up as it was, and the waistband of her sweatpants. And it’s warm, the exact temperature a living person should have, but Heejin feels burning coal across her skin, hot and searing, the tiniest fraction away from being painful, but doesn’t quite stimulate her nerves enough.

Heejin wonders if it’s normal for her to feel so out of breath—to have her heart beating so furiously within her chest that she could almost hear the violent throbbing in her ears—for something so small. It’s just skin contact. It’s nothing special. It’s just Hyunjin’s fingertips drawing phantom lines over her stomach, barely grazing the soft bump of her rib—it’s not supposed to be a big deal.

It's not supposed to fill her mind with thoughts of more, of uncharted territories she’s better off not crossing.

_God, it hurts so—_

Careful not to move too much, Heejin bends her elbow slowly, covering her mouth and shuts her eyes tight as she lets out a violent, muffled string of curses. Faint, red light seeps into her peripheral vision, and she slowly turns towards the ticking digital clock on the desk close by to see glaring numbers of three and zero and four.

It's 3:04 in the morning and Heejin’s sure she isn’t going to wake up in time to prepare for her first class—if she does manage to get a wink of sleep, that is—but she’s also certain that, with her currently having a chaotic, hyperactive brain filled with things she would never say in public, there isn’t really much mercy relented to her sleep schedule at the moment.

She probably shouldn’t have let Yeojin’s prank ruin Hyunjin’s favorite bedsheets, Heejin thinks, but this feels like something people would call a delirious fit in the middle of the night and Heejin doesn’t even want to utter a single complaint because to be quite honest, the heat spreading from Hyunjin’s body to hers in slow, almost teasing caresses has got to be the best kind of burn Heejin has ever felt in her life.


	2. 2/2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Heejin mulls over the boundaries of being friends, and being something else entirely.

Sometimes, Heejin mulls over the boundaries of being friends, and being something else entirely.

In a relationship between a man and a woman, the barriers are a bit thicker—a bit more tangible. It’s something as simple as wanting to feel someone’s lips against yours, to feel their touch on your skin, writing muted promises of passion and more. It’s easy to understand. Most of the time as well, you don’t even have to think about the limitations of human relationships because society’s there to do it for you. There are rules engraved in everyone’s mind, some identical, some different, but they’ll judge things all the same, and in the end, you just end up going with whatever it is that people shove into your head as you grow older. It doesn’t matter whether you initially wanted to or not.

But when it’s about having unspoken desires aimed towards someone who is both a friend and of the same gender category, the gray areas are a bit more, say, _spread out_. They’re everywhere, and the worst part of it—you never know where exactly they lie.

“Heejin,” she hears Hyunjin say her name, just as she starts inking her most recent work. It sounds different from the other times Hyunjin’s called out to her. More often than not, Hyunjin speaks her name in a way that’s reminiscent to the image of paper flitting in the wind; gentle and natural, but with a vague crisp to it, as if it’s meant to be that way but it could be more, as if there could be a bit more flavor along the edges. This time, she says it like it’s forced out of her mouth—so painfully casual that it seems more strained than relaxed.

What comes out of her mouth the following second rolls over her tongue in the same stiff, hesitant manner.

“You know,” Hyunjin pauses, and the room’s quiet enough that Heejin hears her breathe out. “Every now and then, I just sort of think about how it feels like to kiss someone.”

It’s one thing to be physically attracted to someone who belongs to the same sex, Heejin thinks, and another to be so helplessly weak to anything they say or do that you just end up ignoring everything else whenever they try to take up as much as a fragment of your attention.

Her hand sways to a stop, lifting from the paper after tracing a line just a centimeter too crooked, and she looks up to meet Hyunjin’s awkward gaze.

“Well, no—uh, that came out a bit weird.” Hyunjin turns away, fixing her attention on a poster of some random girl group plastered on the wall of her side of the room. “I just… want to experience it once, I guess.”

For a moment, Heejin’s mind is vacant, and the next, it’s overflowing with incomplete trains of thought deliberately cut off to prevent herself from sinking deeper into the quicksand that is _her_ —to prevent herself from spiraling down even faster than she already is. It’s within this instant that Heejin somehow manages to simultaneously raise her heartrate and get her mind into that familiar whirlwind of unwanted emotions that has been eating away at her insides for years now—all because of a sentence that probably doesn’t even have that much depth beneath it.

It's easy to pretend it doesn’t affect her as much as it does. Heejin feels the heat trailing up her neck, and it’s easier to play it off as her being sick because she knows Hyunjin wouldn’t touch her just to make sure she’s all right—it’s easy to do a lot of things under the pretense that they’re friends and she’s only maintaining an appropriate distance because, well, that’s what friends do, isn’t it? Friends don’t have late-night conversations about growing old together surrounded by cats and dogs and even raccoons sometimes, friends don’t pull each other into tight spaces and corners to hug them and talk about how priceless these moments are; to have the other’s body pressed comfortably against them, friends don’t rub letters on each other’s bare skin while they’re sleeping—

Friends don’t imagine kissing each other and whispering honeyed confessions into their ears.

Going about it the normal way doesn’t complicate things.

It’s plain, it’s easy, it’s what people do and it hurts a lot more.

But Heejin likes to pretend like she’s numb to it, and through the years, she’s gotten fairly good at painting smiles on her lips and glazing her eyes with either light or darkness to mask the words they might let slip.

Heejin knows the easy way is the best choice. Choosing it only means that she’ll go along with her life doing what she’s used to until it fades away like all her other feelings have—it’s what time does to everyone. She only has to wait for a while. Heejin’s waited for three years, what’s a bit more going to do, right?

But maybe it’s that same stubborn streak that made her pursue the arts regardless of how risky it was, or her mess of a mood, or that almost negligible part of her brain that’s constantly screaming at her to drive herself into corners—she doesn’t know why or how but the words rush out of her lips coated in something strong—something strong and provocative and clear and utterly unlike the frenzied pulse in her veins.

“So, like,” she begins, and maybe it’s that teasing tone to her voice, but Hyunjin turns to her quicky—almost too quickly—with eyes betraying the surprise she’s most likely feeling at the moment. “Why don’t you?”

Hyunjin stares at her with an expression Heejin’s never seen her wear before and in an instant, the sudden boost in her nerves deflates, just as fast as it took over her words.

It’s one thing to fall for the only person who’s ever been close enough to touch her whenever they wanted, Heejin thinks, and another to crave more of what she’s given—more, and more, and more of it until she simply finds herself unable to pull her mind completely out of the countless alternate universes of what-if’s, of every decision she could’ve made, of every line she could’ve crossed, but didn’t.

Sometimes, reality weighs down on her shoulders almost as heavily as her dreams, and—if only for a moment—Heejin suffocates.

Heejin opens her mouth to speak, but the words (lies) don’t lay themselves bare to the world as easily as they always have.

“I…” Hyunjin starts off instead, slowly, her eyes brimming with uncertainty and a bit of fear, if Heejin’s seeing it correctly. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

Heejin isn’t really all that sure about it either.

Forget about it, Heejin begs silently as she exhales. _Please forget it._

She shrugs, feigning nonchalance, like there isn’t a bitter taste in her tongue that gradually buries itself in the base of her throat. “You tell me.”

The words somehow make it taste even more bitter, and Heejin wants to get out. She wants to breathe and run and scream into the wind and come back with a heart that isn’t rotting by the minute, with veins clear of self-induced poison, and a voice that isn’t always laced with promises that want to crawl out every waking moment.

It's been years of painstaking effort to hide every scar tissue and every cut that carves itself in her eyes and the flesh of her mind and her heart, and it becomes too much to handle sometimes.

Just a bit too much.

Snow white hands flitter to fabric just as pure, and Heejin takes a moment to think about the bitter irony before she stands, stuffing her hands into the pocket of her hoodie. She feels the faint trembles running down the length of her arms, and she sniffles, giggling hoarsely as she turns to Hyunjin.

“I don’t think that’s something you need to worry about, Hyunjin,” she says, a small grin playing on her lips. “It’s you we’re talking about here. If you asked anyone for a kiss, they’d agree in a heartbeat.” Heejin laughs, bending down to gather the materials on the table. “You could even just up and kiss people and they’d thank you for it."

It's supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be too easy, even. 

_"It's not a big deal."_

Shaky fingers tighten their grip, and the sound of paper crumpling reaches Heejin's ears. She curses under her breath, adjusting her hold on the materials in her hands, and turns to Hyunjin, beaming. "I'll leave this here for a bit, okay? I'm just gonna—" 

"You."

Hyunjin says it while looking straight at her. Unblinking. 

The smile on Heejin's face wavers. "I, what?" 

One corner of Hyunjin's mouth twitches, and she rubs the back of her head, sitting up slowly. Then, she slides out of bed, and Heejin finds herself unable to move an inch as she watches the other girl close the distance between them. They're only a few steps apart when Hyunjin stops. 

"I, um..." Hyunjin trails off, grimacing as she shifts on her feet. Her shoulders are tensed, and her arms sway awkwardly along her sides, hands looking almost as if they want to reach out to something. "God, this is so... Is it okay to say it like this?" 

Heejin feels her throat closing up when Hyunjin looks at her, and she stares into hooded, dark chocolate eyes simmering in what seems to be a medley of anxiety and excitement and everything else Heejin couldn't quite comprehend. 

"Heejin?" 

She gulps, parting her lips to say "Yes," only to feel her own breath against her mouth, a warm hand covering the area of her face that's below the bridge of her nose. Heejin heaves a shuddering breath when she sees—and feels—Hyunjin's hand sliding down her arm. It stops at the part just below her elbow and wraps around it, a bit tight, but not uncomfortable, just—hesitant. Pleading. 

"Don't—Can you please not answer that for now?" Heejin nods, and Hyunjin lifts her hand, pauses, and presses her thumb against her lips. Her touch slowly slides up the length of Heejin's jaw, her ear, and down the curve of her neck, and settles on her collarbones. Hyunjin's gaze flits from Heejin's neck, to her lips, then to her eyes, and she speaks, her voice cracking as she softly strokes the shallow dip just above her collarbones, "I just—I'm kind of trying not to kiss you right now. But in case I do, I don't want to know if I'm doing this right or... or whatever." She breathes in, shakily, and Heejin thinks she feels her touch a little more. "You. I want to kiss you. And I'm not sure I'll take no for an answer."

Sunlight seeps through the windows and when Heejin sees rich brown orbs coated with a lighter sheen closely resembling maple leaves, her lower lip quivers and she feels it from within the cages of her ribs—she feels it against her chest, hammering with fervor matching that of blazing fire, and she thinks—

Slender fingers loosen their hold on her when she leans in. 

It happens quickly, softly, but Heejin feels soft lips murmuring against hers and the taste of something more, of something just a touch too hot, fills her mouth and her mind and cuts through her thoughts like promises of changes and dashes of hope and yearning. 

It tastes like everything Heejin couldn't ever begin to describe and she doesn't ever want to let go. 

But moments like this flash through reality like shooting stars, and Heejin's scared it won't leave anything but another set of scars. 

Heejin pulls away first, and she only takes a single, shallow breath before she asks—whispers, more than anything. 

"Please stay." 

She says it like it's new, her voice low and breathy and fragile—delicate. But it's been on her mind for years, haunting her in her sleep and remaining unanswered—she's never wanted to ask. Right now, though, right now might be the only chance she gets and she doesn't say all of it, she doesn't pour her heart out, but _this_ , Heejin thinks, this is all right. 

Hyunjin's eyes glimmer in various shades of gold underneath the faint glare of the setting sun, and it's not an oath, it's not a promise, but it leaves a mark and that's all Heejin needs. 

"Okay."

This time, when she smiles, she tries to hold it back so hard it almost hurts, but it's real and raw and it's everything. Just—

Everything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heejin afterwards: "Thank you."
> 
> Somewhere in the universe, Jinsoul bangs her head on the table. "Fuck, this is so lame."

**Author's Note:**

> A two-part short story featuring 2jin because I just started stanning LOONA 2 days ago and I'm already being blessed with a comeback.
> 
> oH mY gOd YeS. Right?


End file.
